The March 22, 2019 Meeting of the Professional Learning Committee (PLC) was held at Centennial Education Center in Room A-110. There were approximately nine (9) teachers in attendance. The purpose of the meeting was to revise our listening assessments and rubrics.

The Beginning group reworked some of their questions, but was generally satisfied with the rubrics they had created. The Intermediate group removed one comprehension question on their first listening assessment from December, and added three vocabulary questions. They were also generally pleased with the rubrics they had made at the last PLC meeting.

Rob Jenkins created a progress chart to determine how much work the two groups had completed. Both the Beginning and Intermediate groups stated they had finished their writing and listening assessments, and they had conducted their team testing. However, neither group had completed their assessment school piloting as yet. Rob stated that he would be reporting to the ESL Assessment Committee on the PLC’s progress. At the next meeting on April 12th, OTAN will be giving a presentation to the PLC on accessing Open Educational Resources (OCR) in Room E108.

The Friday, March 8th Meeting of the PLC was held in Room A-110 at Centennial Education Center. The teachers met in two groups Beginning and Intermediate/Advanced to complete their Listening Assessments and Rubrics. The Intermediate Group created two listening assessments and recorded audio tracks to accompany the written dialogues. In addition, they revised and substantially shortened their listening rubrics. Their new rubric only focuses on two areas: Comprehension and Vocabulary. It uses a 4-3-2-1 Scale to evaluate the students.

The Beginning Group completed three listening assessments and revised their listening rubric. The new rubric for the Beginning Group also has a 4-3-2-1 Scale but only uses a picture for the students to use when responding to the Listening. (The students will circle A or B, or A or B or C for the response that best matches the picture).

Finally, Rob suggested creating a schedule for when teachers could give their Assessments throughout the semester. Jose Lopez Mercedes will be giving an OTAN Presentation on April 26th about Online Class Resources at Santa Ana College. The online resources would be available for instructors in any department and Ellen Welch suggested putting our Assessments online to make it easier for ESL instructors to access.

The February 22, 2019 Meeting of the Professional Learning Committee (PLC) was held at Centennial Education Center in Room A-110. Within level, two groups (Beginning level and Intermediate/Advanced level) met to continue work on the writing and listening assessments and rubrics.The Beginning group refined their listening assessment so that it now focuses more directly on listening skill. The listening rubric was also completed and several members of the group will do initial trials of the assessment/rubric prior to the March 8, 2019 meeting.

​The mixed Int/Adv group (including ABE Composition, ESL Int/Adv, & Academic ESL) worked on team rubric scoring of 6 students writings. With few exceptions, there was fairly close agreement on the scores given. The group discussed that, within a semester, it would be important to do at least 3 writing assessments using the rubric. The average of the resulting scores could then be one of the multiple measures that helps to determine passing to the next level (with 70% and above = passing writing; may need to work out a percentage range for specific levels.

Regarding listening, this group selected one of the completed listening assessments, the “Job Interview” dialogue/q​uestions to try out in the classroom. Results will be brought to the 3/8/19 meeting. For now, the group will use the percentage correct on the listening assessment questions as a measure of listening skill. Nancy Rucker offered to assist in working on an Int/Adv listening rubric design for possible future use.

The February 8, 2019 Meeting of the Professional Learning Committee (PLC) was held at Centennial Education Center in Room A-110. There were 12 teachers in attendance. Within level, Beginning and Intermediate groups agreed on level appropriate writing assessments and worked on refining writing rubrics for in-classroom use during the next two weeks. Teachers will bring results to the next PLC meeting on February 22 for team scoring and discussion.

Sue Garnett attended and her expertise helped us to re-work the Intermediate Writing rubric toward a more practical score-weighting and organization of the scoring categories. The Intermediate group divided forces, so some teachers worked with Sue on the above, and some planned the appropriate writing assessments to use. The teamwork was amazing!

Also within level, Beginning and Intermediate groups worked on listening assessments and rubrics. Most have agreed on the type of assessment to use, but development, recording, etc. will require more work prior to implementation in the classrooms within the next month. The goal is to implement the listening assessments/rubrics prior to the March 8, 2019 PLC.

The Beginning level group had a really productive session related to this and they are working on finishing their rubric in preparation for classroom use. Towards the end of the meeting, they gave a helpful mini-report on their process and considerations in creating the rubric.

The December 7th Meeting of the PLC was held at Centennial Education Center. There were 7 teachers in attendance from the Beginning ESL Group. The meeting was held in order for the Beginning Group to complete their second set of formative assessments.

The group met for two hours and was able to finish their assessments. Both the Intermediate and Beginning ESL Teachers plan to continue their work on the formative assessments during the Spring 2019 Semester. In Spring, the new curriculum for the Santa Ana College Continuing Education ESL Department will put into effect. The teacher groups will complete additional assessments and pilot test the assessments with their classes so appropriate modifications may be made. The PLC’s work will help inform the decisions on curricular assessment made by the ESL Department.

The November 30th Meeting of the PLC was held at Centennial Education Center. There were over 16 teachers in attendance. The meeting was chaired by Eric Glicker in the absence of Rob Jenkins. The objective of the meeting was to create two additional ESL formative listening assessments.

The Beginning ESL Teachers and the Intermediate ESL Teachers met in two groups at the Centennial Resource Center. Both groups of teachers looked at the previous ESL Pre-Post Tests to get some ideas for their new formative assessments.

They also consulted textbooks such as the Future Textbook Series, which contains many listening exercises. By the conclusion of the meeting, the Intermediate group had completed two assessments and the Beginning Group decided to meet again in the Resource Center during the following week.

The Professional Learning Committee (PLC) met at Centennial Education Center in the Resource Room on Friday, November 9th, 2018. There were approximately 14 teachers in attendance. The teachers met in two groups by ESL Level (Beginning and Intermediate) to create formative listening assessments. The plan was to make four assessments in each group. There was also some discussion among the group members on whether to use the CASAS Listening Test as a final summative assessment.

Finally, each group decided it create the first assessment during the November 9th Meeting. Thus, each group began work on their first formative listening assessment for the Beginning and Intermediate ESL levels. The new curriculum will be implemented during the Spring 2018 trimester, and the names of the courses will be changed to reflect the designations used by CASAS (Literacy; Beginning Low and High; Intermediate Low and High; and Advanced Low and High).

Fortunately, with great teamwork among the group members, the teacher groups were able to complete their first formative assessments. In fact, the Intermediate ESL group even did a recording of the dialogue of the first listening assessment with assistance from Rob Jenkins. Rob will not be attending the Friday, November 30th meeting; however, some of the members of the PLC will come together on that date to continue to work on the second formative listening assessments. The goal is to have all the listening assessments completed and ready for trial testing during the Spring 2019 trimester.